The Mirrors.pdf

LZWE[DDADE

adorablecullens

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4971734/1/The_Mirrors

Teddy's secret and magical childhood is lost when a family heirloom is destroyed, changing his life

forever. Now an adult, can Edward open himself back up to magic and love when he meets a

beautiful - and hauntingly famiiar - woman in real ife?

Prologue

The young woman lay on her bed and wept as if her heart would break. But the reality is that it

already had; it broke the moment she saw in her mind what had happened on that far-away

beachhead in northern France. But she had foolishly alowed herself to hope that somehow, their

marriage could stll be permitted.

It had not.

Her love had returned from France several weeks after she'd had the vision, walking slowly down the

gangplank of the boat, guided by one of his comrades. The bandages stil covered his eyes.

It was a sickening irony that he had lost his sight, while she retained hers. All of hers.

To her, blindness was nothing. She had Sight enough for two. Surely they could learn to ive with it.

Jack was her love, her only love, and she would endure any horror to be with him.

Her parents had thought otherwise.

"Mary, no. He wil never be able to work again, or at least, not sufficiently enough to support you. I

know this is difficult, but there can be no question of your marrying Jack now." Her mother had

shared her sorrow, but there had been no swaying her. Or her father.

Within the year, she had been married off to a much more suitable man, a minister who had been

widowed at a young age. Mary bore him a strong daughter, one to make them both proud. Her

husband loved her and treated her kindly all his ife, and Mary returned his affections. But she never

forgot her first love. So she was grateful when her husband answered the call to become the minister

to a growing congregation in the west. It was too difficult to ive her life in the same small community

as the man she loved but could not have.

Her husband had died after a long llness; she had nursed him well so that he rested comfortably in

his final months. He had been a gentle, decent man who had deserved a better end than the one

fate had alowed. After his death, she moved in with her daughter and her new husband. There was

some tension, as there was wont to be when there were two grown women iving under the same

roof. But the night that her first grandson was born, Mary had had a vision of startling clarity. And in

seeing it, knew she could depart this world in peace when the time came. After that, she ived

contentedly with the family in the role of wling grandmother and helpmate.

Jack also married, a plain woman from a much less prominent family. A family with lower expectations.

Jack's blindness had not taken away his inner talents, and he proved to be an incredibly sklful metal

worker even with his bindness. He had hired a young apprentice who helped serve as his eyes on

the tasks that required them. Together, they had run a modestly successful business. His wife bore

him a lovely daughter. And he too, never forgot his first love, although he did his best to ensure that

his wedded wife felt cherished all the days of their life together.

He lived long for a man who had endured much hardship in life. Lived to hear that his love had died

far too young. This had saddened him immeasurably, although he could see her in his dreams truly

see her, the way he used to be able to. Lived to bury his wife. Lived to know his granddaughter,

lived to see her (in a manner of speak) become a beautiful young woman.

And ived to see an extraordinary story of love begin once again.

The baby had been crying all night, and Esme was exhausted. Her little boy was teething for the first

time, and nothing she tried would settle him down. Her poor angel just cried and cried, big fat tears

of misery rolling down his chubby little cheeks as he swiped at his own gums. Carlisle was away at a

medical conference, and Esme was discovering firsthand how hard it is to tend to a fussy baby in the

middle of the night on her own.

Except she wasn't entirely on her own. At that moment, her mother appeared in the doorway in a blue

bathrobe. She always seems to do that, always seems to know the right moment to appear, thought

Esme. It is said that she has the Sight, and some days, Esme can believe it.

"Let me take him for you for a bit, dear. Try to get some sleep. You must be so tired with Carlisle

away."

"Mom, I'm sorry Teddy woke you. He's just in so much pain with his teeth." She laughed and sobbed

at the same time. "Was I like this too?"

"Yes, you were," Mary said, taking her grandson out of her tired daughter's arms. "Go to sleep,

Esme. I'll take him downstairs." And with that, she took the screaming baby downstairs. She ignored

the frozen teething rings, picking instead an old short-handled wooden spoon from the drawer. Sitting

down at the kitchen table, she showed the wooden spoon to Teddy. For a moment, he was distracted

from the pain in his mouth by the new object. She guided the spoon end between his gums, and he

bit down on the wood. After a few false starts, he began to chew industriously, the pressure relieving

the ache in his tiny mouth.

"Yes, that's better, isn't it, Teddy?" she crooned, stroking his cap of dark blonde hair. He was the

prettiest baby she'd ever seen he'd be a looker when he got older. She got up after a bit and

walked slowly through the darkened house, hoping he'd fall asleep on her shoulder. Her grandson

stopped fussing, but he was wide awake as he chewed his spoon. After a while, she strolled into

sitting room and stood before a full-length mirror, lost in thought.

The mirror was old, set in an intricate wrought iron frame. The iron in the frame had been carefully

crafted into simple flower settings. Mirror and frame together were about five and a half feet high and

three and a half feet wide. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, every inch of it handmade, one

of a kind.

Teddy looked up at her face and then turned in her arms. He saw the silver reflective surface of the

mirror and gurgled with delight. His little hands batted at the mirror, as if seeking the baby he saw in

front of him.

"What do you see, Teddy?" she asked, coming closer to the mirror. "Do you see something in the

mirror? It has powerful magic in it, you know. When I look into it, I see much happiness for you ...

and the righting of a great sadness. I saw it the night you came into this world that you would be

the one." Her eyes had a far-away look. "But it is not you who will have the Sight in this family

after I am gone. I won't live long enough to see your sister come into this world."

Mary drew up a ladder back chair and sat down. She cuddled his warm body close to her. He turned

his green eyes up to her face once again and smiled, drool coming down his chin in streams. She

wiped his chin with the edge of his blanket and smiled back.

"Would you like a story, my little one?" she asked. Teddy chewed on his spoon, and she took that

as a "yes" from the one and only grandchild she knew she would live to hold. "A long time ago, in

a far-away land, there lived a beautiful warrior princess with long red hair. Her country was terribly

beleaguered by an army of cruel invaders ..."

And so Teddy's fascination with the mirror began.

Long after his grandmother died (far too young, only in her 60s, such a shock to the family), he

could be found sitting in front of the mirror, apparently delighted by his own reflection. Given a choice,

Teddy would almost always play with his toys in front of the mirror not just any mirror, but his

mirror.

His parents lost count of the number of times they found him curled up there with his favourite blanket

or stuffed toy, sound asleep.

"What do you see in the mirror, Teddy?" his father Carlisle asked casually one day, seeing his oldest

son sitting in his usual spot on the floor. Esme was upstairs putting Teddy's younger sister down for a

nap. Teddy and Alice were just 18 months apart in age. Little Alice had been a bit of surprise, but a

wonderful one. Born the same night Mary had passed away so unexpectedly in her sleep of cardiac

arrest.

"People," replied Teddy. Carlisle's eyes slid over to the mirror for a moment, then bounced back to

his four-year-old pushing trucks on the floor. "Gran. A girl. A lady with long red hair. Sometimes a

black monster. I don't like the monster." His father stood there, intrigued by his son's words. There

was no question that Teddy was extremely intelligent; even at his young age, it was apparent that the

boy had a bright future ahead of him. No doubt this creativity was part of his gift, his father thought.

"Can you draw me a picture of what you see, Teddy?" Carlisle asked. He went into his study and

returned with a sheaf of scrap paper and a pencil. His son took the pencil and began to draw. The

figures were relatively simple but still advanced for a child of his age. A little while later, Teddy

pushed the papers over to his father with a hopeful smile on his face. Carlisle picked up the papers

and looked at them ... and felt his skin prickle up in gooseflesh.

The first image was clearly ... clearly ... his mother-in-law. Who had died when Teddy was only 18

months old. He must have seen a picture of her to get the likeness so right. But it still made him

uneasy.

He didn't recognize any of the other people Teddy had drawn. There was a grown woman with hair

that fell to her knees. Some kind of shaggy-haired monster with fangs more the kind of thing he'd

expect from a four-year-old boy with an overly-active imagination.

And three or four images of a little girl about Teddy's age with chin-length hair and watchful eyes. He

always drew that image with a long rectangle around it.

"Who's this, son?" he asked, showing the pictures of the young girl.

"I don't know their names. Except Gran."

"Why does she have the rectangle around her?"

"Because that's the only way I ever see her," said Teddy. "She's further away than the others. On

the other side."

"Do you ever speak to these people?" Carlisle asked in spite of himself.

"No," said Teddy, puzzled. "How could I talk to them? They're inside the mirror."

Esme entered the room, her figure soft and slightly rounded. She was already showing, even though

she was only in her second month. This would be their third child, and probably their last. Esme

thought it would be a boy. She said her mother had told her before she had died that she had

foreseen a daughter between two sons. Carlisle had smiled indulgently, but his mother-in-law's guesses

had always been uncannily accurate.

"Admiring artwork, are we?" she asked, peering over her husband's shoulder. Esme gasped in surprise

at the sight of her mother's face on the page. "Teddy! What a beautiful picture of Gran!" Her young

son smiled shyly, flushed by all the attention.

"He says he sees her in the mirror," said Carlisle, trying not to let his trepidation show in his voice.

He couldn't help it he was a doctor, after all. Esme gave her husband a look and then smiled at

her oldest boy.

"Maybe he does, Carlisle. Maybe he does."

Chapter 1

He was eight the first time it happened.

Not getting out of bed in the night he had been doing that ever since he had gotten his big boy

bed and figured out how to work the latches of the child safety gates at the top of the staircase.

After that, Teddy had made regular trips downstairs to visit the mirror.

The mirror was better than the television, better than comic books or video games. Well, maybe not

video games. But for sure better than television and comics.

He could remember the day that he realized that other people did not see the same things in the

mirror that he did. He remembered being very frightened by this, but his Gran came to him that night

in his dreams and told him it was okay.

"Is the black monster in the mirror real, Gran?" he asked her. He didn't like the black monster.

"Yes, Teddy," she replied in the dream, "but it can't hurt you the way you think it can. It can't touch

you or bite you. Even if you stand in the same room with it. But it can take the things you love

from you, so you must always be careful around it."

The mirror showed him wonderful sights over the years. There were stories, like movies, except there

was no sound, but it didn't really matter. Teddy's favorite was one with lots of sword fighting and

horses. In that story, a woman with long red hair and a man with hair so blonde it was nearly white

fought an army of invaders and won. Lots of people died, and it was very exciting. At the end, the

black monster came, but Teddy was sorely disappointed that the woman with the red hair didn't fight

and kill it too. Instead, they circled each other warily, and then bowed to one another.

Sometimes there was a story of a beautiful sad lady and a man with no eyes. Teddy figured the lady

was sad because the man had lost his eyes. He'd be pretty sad about that too. Other times, there

was no story just a continuous drifting of interesting figures in front of the mirror.

And most nights, far on the other side of the people in the mirror, sat the girl. Watching. Just like

him. She had brown hair and was about his age. He knew she could see him because they waved to

each other every time he was at the mirror. Teddy found it curious that the people in the mirror never

changed, but the girl seemed to grow up the same way he did.

This was Teddy's magical and secret childhood.

He drew endless pictures of what he saw in the mirror. He kept a collection of sketch books that he

shared with no one instinct told him that what he saw in the mirror was for his eyes only. His

parents had seen only a sliver of his artwork from the world behind the mirror.

A few days after his eighth birthday, Teddy awoke in the night and felt the strongest compulsion he

had ever had to visit the mirror. He slipped downstairs in his X-Men pajamas.

There was no story in the mirror tonight. Then he saw her. The girl from the other side of the mirror.

Except she wasn't on the other side of the mirror anymore. She was inside the mirror. And she was

not alone.

The black monster was there.

The girl was on the ground, her hands held up in defense as the black monster drew nearer. It was

easily twice her size, and it grinned unnaturally as it approached. The girl was screaming something as

the monster started to sniff her. Teddy could see her mouth moving, but he couldn't hear the sound.

His heart was pounding. What could he do? If he yelled, he would wake everyone in the house. Then

they would make him go back to bed, and he wouldn't be able to help the girl. Besides, he didn't

think they could hear him inside the mirror anyway he couldn't hear them, after all. But the panic

welling up in him demanded that he take some kind of action. The black monster circled the terrified

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